Hippocratic Oath? There is a disturbing new trend in healthcare. I don’t yet know if this is occurring only in Washington County or if it is happening all over the state. I have learned that it is now necessary to submit an application for review… Read More

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Anonymous

Cora Snyder:

If you lived in Canada, all you would have to do is get out the phone book, call a few doctor’s offices and be seen by one that day.

Once there, the secretary would swipe your Health Canada card and you would see the doctor – on time – at no out-of-pocket cost to you.

This was my experience when I lived and worked in the Maritimes.

The Canadian Single-Payer system is far far far superior in all respects than the US healthcare system.

Been there – done that.

Yessah

Alec Cunningham

I have heard that, and I have heard, from Canadians in Quebec, that there are sometimes waits and miscommunication and long delays for appointments. I am not sure that the Canadian system is as perfect as we are led to believe.

Anonymous

I never had a wait for anything – even a company-required cardiac stress test.that I had done 2 days after I was told I needed to get it.

Try to schedule a non-emergency stress test here in Maine.- it will take forever.

Prescription drugs are dirt cheap in Canada because they can negotiate prices with drug companies – something that republicans refuse to allow Medicare or Medicaid to do in the US.

Oh yeah – my Health Canada premiums were dirt cheap too.

Do not believe the right-wing lies they tell you about Canadian Health care.

Anonymous

Do you believe that Canadian citizens lie about wait times and having to travel to Toronto from Atlantic Canada for certain procedures that aren’t available to them or the Canadian citizens that travel to Bangor for “elective” procedures, pay in cash and then go back to Canada and submit the bill to the Provincial government for reimbursement?

I know I believe them when they relate these stories to me.

Anonymous

Health Canada pays those people to come to Maine for those treatments/procedures.

They also pay their motel rooms too.

This prevents Health Canada from duplicating services and reduces the overall cost of the program.

It’s called “good business sense”

Yessah

Anonymous

No it’s called limiting access to health care and/or treatment and/or procedures to control costs.

Pray tell, how is requiring someone to travel to a foreign country, paying travel expenses plus the cost of the procedure “good business sense”?

Anonymous

Thousands of people die in the US because they do not have health insurance – that does not happen in Canada.

There is no such thing as “medical bankruptcy” in Canada – massive uninsured medical bills are a prime cause of bankruptcy in the US>

I told you – by not duplicating services they keep costs down.

Good business sense.

Please try to keep up.

Yessah

Anonymous

So no one ever dies in Canada for lack of care? Really.

I personally know a family from Canada who’s aunt died waiting for cancer treatment that was available but she had to wait.

An Open MRI for a claustrophobic or obese person is not “duplicating services” but the closest one for patients living in Atlantic Canada is in Toronto. The wait time last time I checked was 6 months.

Call it what you want but making people wait for necessary health care procedures is not “Good business sense”.

Anonymous

How many people from Maine travel out-of-state for treatment/surgery etc.

Lots.

and your point is????

Anonymous

Do people travel to Boston from Bangor for treatment and care? Sure some do and the travel time is 5 hours from Bangor.

How far is it from Halifax to Toronto?

Alec Cunningham

I hear what you are saying, but these are stories from Montrealers in Quebec province. Not Americans living there, but true French-Canadian Canadian citizens having to deal with headaches in the Canadian healthcare system.
I’m not saying that all the good things you hear are lies; rather, I am saying that it’s not as wonderfully perfect as the left-wing says it is.
And this now makes me wonder how much access the Canadian government has to the personal health records of its citizens and what it can do with that information…

Anonymous

The vast majority – more than 75% – of Canadians are satisfied with their health care system.

0% want the American system – which they consider barbaric.

My Canadian friends and colleagues never ever complained about their health care system.

GOP lies and Fairy tales about the Canadian health care system are just that – lies and Fairy Tales…

Yessah

Alec Cunningham

Okay, again, these people in Montreal are not GOP liars. And again, there are issues with that system as well.
Your friends are lucky: http://www.examiner.com/article/canada-s-health-care-system-has-its-problems
The 10th annual Health Care in Canada survey confirms that wait times and the shortage of doctors top the list pf concerns voiced by Canadians in 2008. Other issues of concern were timeliness and access to care and environmental health issues such as air and water pollution.

One example from the PDF found in the article here (http://www.cha.ca/index.php?option=com_weblinks&view=category&id=72&Itemid=71) found in the link listed above: For each of the following, please indicate whether timely access over the past 2 years has improved, worsened or remained the same: … Family doctors. who says worsened:
Public: 49% Doctors: 81% Pharmacists: 78% Nurses: 81% Managers: 71%

It really seems that you are the one telling fairy tales.

Anonymous

Just how many years ago was your experiance?

Seems just a bit different from the many places in Canada where there is a lottery just to get an appointment at a doctor’s office.

Anonymous

1990’s

Anonymous

How about those clinics popping up in Canada that are only taking cash and cutting out the “Canadian Single-Payer” system.

kcjonez

Clyde Baker

Amen!

It would be sweet if the Leviticus preaching bible thumpers could get over marriage equality the way they seem to have gotten over eating shellfish.

Maybe now they can put their efforts into fighting usury as the good book says–something that will benefit our society instead of polarize it.

Anonymous

Marriage from the Latin stem Matri meaning mother, hence matrimony is marriage. Marriage is not to be redefined no matter what type of license is issued. What is next redefining adult.

Anonymous

So only lesbians can engage in SSM?

kcjonez

So you’re ok with usury?

If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.
ex.22-25

Alec Cunningham

Adult HAS been redefined many many times.

Anonymous

You realize words have different meanings in different contexts, right? Like, there is a difference between the legal meaning of adult and the social meaning of it. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp in terms of marriage — you just have to get passed your disdain for gay people.

Anonymous

Marriage was not redefined November 6th anymore then it was redefined in 1967 when the SCOTUS issued their ruling on Loving v. Virginia.

But you don’t need to agree with it….you can take solace that Alabama was the last state to remove bans on interracial marriage in 2000 even though the ban was meaningless after Loving v. Virginia.

Clyde Baker, as a gay woman with a strong faith in God it has been very hurtful when churches put signs outside against me. Jesus never sent anyone away. A local church even put a huge sign out front after the vote that said Mans law is not God’s law. Sin is sin.” I will bet he doesn’t know that it is also a sin, per the Bible, to not obey man’s law and to speak out against the president. But, he only follows the law that makes him feel better about himself. Thank you Mr. Baker, the world needs more of God’s children like you.

Anonymous

Jesus did send people away. And when he did so, he told them, “Go, and sin no more.” Jesus forgives, but he expects us to try our best to follow his laws after we have been forgiven. It’s not a sin to have a same-sex attraction, but it is a sin to act on that attraction. Jesus will give us many graces to avoid sin, and his graces work, if we’re willing to lean on what he has to offer.

Anonymous

But you forgot the most important part of that story….Jesus prefaced “go and sin no more” with “let you who is without sin cast the first stone”.

Anonymous

Curious! It’s man’s law when they don’t prevail, but it’s God’s will when they do! I though God answered all prayers; appears they didn’t get the answer they wanted.

Alec Cunningham

Reminds me of Webster claiming fraud when they lose, but puts off fraud investigation when they win.

Anonymous

I think many have thought the same thing as what you express here. It gets curiouser and curiouser. They do not make a strong case at all.

Anonymous

Mr. Bucci, I could not agree more with you about the triple threat. If we push hard we can give the Democratic Party the support it will need to preserve Social Security and Medicare.

Alec Cunningham

Cora-that has happened to me in Bangor.

Anonymous

Cora Snyder

Welcome to Obamacare.

Anonymous

That has nothing to do with Obamacare –

It has everything to do with a dysfunctional, inefficient, for-profit, privately-insured healthcare system that no other civilized industrial nation uses.

Yessah

Alec Cunningham

How many innovations in the medical field come from national health-care based industries and how many from private for-profit based industries?
While I don’t think that this new application process is a result of the Affordable Healthcare Act, I do think that the fairy tale you’re perpetuating is really doing everyone a disservice. Our system, while not perfect and could be more efficient, is not barbaric. The Canadian system is also not as ideal and perfect as you make it out to be.

Yes sir.

Anonymous

All my foreign colleagues and friends think that America’s healthcare system is barbaric.

Not just my Canadian friends.

One of my former US co-workers now lives in Chile and married a local woman.

When they had their twins, he was flabbergasted when he got the bill.

$300 for everything – hospital stay and the whole 9 yards.

He was even more shocked when the pediatrician made HOUSE CALLS – to check up on his girls after they came home.

Most of the world enjoys a cheaper, more efficient, more effective healthcare system than the US.

Oh yeah – to answer your question – check the country of origin of the instruments in a typical Maine medical lab. Most were developed and made in Japan – that has “socialist” medicine – lol.

Yessah

Alec Cunningham

Yes, that’s great. But you are neglecting to address the problems that those foreign systems have while you continue to put down our system. Ironic that you accuse the right of fairy tales while you continue to spread your own.

Anonymous

Our medical system fails our citizens – the US severely lags in important medical metrics like life expectancy, infant mortality etc.

Those are not Fairy Tales – they are facts.

People in Canada do not die because they lack health insurance – thousands of US citizens do every year.

People in Canada do not lose their homes due to medical bankruptcy – yet it is the prime factor in bankruptcies here in the US.

Barabarism

Yessah

Anonymous

And how many inovations and practices came with government funding? Lots.